


Healing

by dovingbird



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christine has abandoned them. Abandoned them both. And thus the only two people in the world who truly knew her before the Phantom arrived cling to each other for comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Healing

It was only a matter of time, really, he thinks as he brushes away a few long tresses of blonde hair, first just to push them away from his shoulder and then just for the pure pleasure of touching such softness. Christine's hair was never quite so glossy. Always thick. Always untameable. It was more apt to try to strangle him in his sleep when she rolled over and snuggled into his chest than this, the easily manageable locks belonging to Meg.  
  
Meg. The only other creature who understands what he's lost. He flicks his eyes over her sleeping face with a quiet sigh through his nose.

Business often takes him away from home. It is unavoidable as a wealthy man with many investments to secure, with many lands to keep an eye on, and there are times that emergencies must be dealt with. Christine understood. She _always_ understood. He had not planned for the most recent emergency, so close to the birth of their first child, but _she said she understood._  
  
And then he came back a week later to discover the house silent and the police in his entrance hall.  
  
She'd just left, the maids whispered. Handed their son over to the nurse with a bright smile and said she'd be gone for a few hours shopping. That she would return far before nightfall. That she had little things here and there that she wanted to pick up: a new ribbon, a new hat, et cetera. And then night had fallen. And then the crickets had begun their cries. And she was still gone.  
  
He wasn't looking for the compartment in her vanity, the hidden one, but in his haste to see just how much she had taken with her, if there was anything priceless she might have sold that he could try to trace, he found it. A compartment filled with the stationary he'd only just bought her as a gift for their third anniversary. Every piece covered in little black lines that he didn't recognize at first until he saw the clefs at the far end, the vague splatters that were actually musical notes, and then the writing, the scrawling, the exact same words under the exact same pattern of notes, like an aria: "I am your Angel. Come to me, Angel of Music."  
  
"That's all she would do," the maid said as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Once you left, that is. Just sit there at her desk, writing away. She wouldn't even hear her own baby cry."  
  
There was no doubt then, was there? Especially the last line on the last page, the only one that differed. "Wildly my mind beats against you, yet the soul obeys."  
  
She was gone, then. Gone to find her Phantom.  
  
The police left immediately to notify the authorities in Paris, to have the remains of the Opera Populaire searched, but even then he somehow knew he wouldn't find her there. They would have flown, the both of them, and gone as far from Paris as they could manage.  
  
It was only a week later that Meg appeared at the door, her hair bound up, her figure covered in a fine dress, so unlike the costumes that he had grown accustomed to seeing her in that she seemed to have aged ten years. "It's true, isn't it?" she asked in that quiet, lilting tone she'd always had. "That she's gone?" And he'd nodded and been forced to watch as her face crumpled into true, unadulterated sadness.  
  
They might not be British, but Raoul was still under the belief that a little tea made everything better, and thus he coaxed her into the sitting room and ordered a pot brought around. If he touched it up with the warmth of brandy, then so be it. It was there that they spent the next five hours, unheeding of meals, unaware of the passage of time beyond the way the sun would cross the window.  
  
Originally, it seemed that Meg wanted him to do the majority of the talking. She would sit there and stare into her teacup and wait for him to fill the silences, but he had never been a talker, not really, and the only person who ever seemed to begin to coax him out of that stupor was Christine. Her light. Her innocent vivacity. Without it he was a shell of his former self. Meg finally seemed to notice it. And so she spoke instead.  
  
She told him stories, mainly, to start. How she met Christine when they were but six years old. How she was so incredibly excited at the thought of having a real live sister when such a thing would never be possible for her - her father had died in a carriage accident, and it had taken him and her mother nearly ten years of marriage just to conceive Meg. How the two of them were never apart and how, when Meg threw herself into ballet, it was only a matter of course that Christine accompany her. That Christine would eventually outshine Meg in every form she ever learned, if only from the manic practicing she would do on the nights where she couldn't sleep, which became more and more frequent as she aged.  
  
The brandy eventually began to do its work, and Meg's tongue steadily loosened. She told of quiet Winter nights in the dormitory, where they would cuddle up together in the same bed to keep warm, where their lips would eventually meet for much the same. How though Meg loved her new husband with a burning passion - they'd only been married for three months - the affection she shared for Christine was something far different. How she still had dreams about how things might...  
  
She cut off there. He was more than able to fill the blanks.  
  
It was inevitable, Meg finally said, her eyes filling with tears once more. Nothing could capture Christine quite like music. All it would take was the quiet boy who'd recently joined the orchestra tuning his violin to turn her head in the middle of rehearsal. How she found a way to enjoy the sound of La Carlotta's voice even when every other person under the roof wore earplugs. While she might appreciate and even cherish Meg's dancing, Raoul's money, the both of their hearts, she could not devote herself to them with the raw obsession that she felt for music. It was impossible.  
  
He couldn't be jealous. He tried. He stared at Meg over his flask - he'd abandoned the teacup an hour ago - and fought to hate her, to want to send her away. But he couldn't. Because he realized, right then and there, that she was the only other person who truly comprehended what Christine was to him. What he'd lost when she chose another over him. And so he set the flask down and crossed the room and tilted his head until he managed to meet her eyes.  
  
"Why did you come?" he asked softly, voice barely over a whisper.  
  
Meg stared up at him with eyes full of tears before breathing a sigh. "I didn't want to be alone. And I knew you wouldn't either."  
  
He kissed her. By God, he kissed her. He laced his fingers through her hair and tugged it out of its style and pressed her into the chair as he melded his lips to hers, never breaking, never hesitating. And he imagined that, if he tried hard enough, he might taste his wayward wife on those lips that however many years ago captured a little piece of her.  
  
There was less passion in their joining than rawness, less chemistry than clinging. But they still both wept through the act, and finished by holding tight to each other, until either of them could scarcely breathe from the pain and agony of it all.  
  
And now she sleeps. And now he tucks her hair behind her ear. And now he thinks that yes, it _was_ inevitable that he lose his Christine, that she opt for her obsession over her comfort. But this was inevitable too, he decides. A chain of dynamite set off by Christine's spark. And he wonders just how far the chain will extend.


End file.
